This is the third and final part of my Fantastic Four pitch. Previously, I talked about the cast and crew, but today I’m talking about the plot. This is still a rough outline, but here we go.
The movie opens with a young Reed Richards getting bullied in school. He is saved by Ben Grimm. Later, Reed and Ben are friends, and Reed is showing Ben his teleportation device. Reed teleports a toy car into the Negative Zone, creating a black out. Weeks later, Reed is at a Science Fair and teleports a toy plane to the Negative Zone. A government agent name William Lumpkin sees Reed, and calls his superiors, telling them that he found a potential recruit. Lumpkin recruits Reed into the Baxter Program, where he meets Sue Storm, a geneticist, and Johnny Storm, an engineer. Together, they work on a manned teleportaton device, under the supervision of Sue and Johnny’s dad Franklin Storm, geneticist Harvey Elder, and Agent Lumpkin. Reed and Sue begin a romance. Eventually, the teleporter is complete, and Ben Grimm, now a soldier, is tasked with coming along to guard Reed, Sue, and Johnny in the Negative Zone. The four travel to the Negative Zone, onto a large, green, rocky planet with other planets, stars, and moons floating above it. The four of them explore the planet until they see a large rock slide. They run from the rock slide and are scattered. As they each wander, separated, green cosmic rays start raining from the sky, destroying the ground and creating large explosions. The four meet back up at the teleporter, as they see the sky glow green as cosmic rays approach the planet. They quickly go into the teleporter, and activate it as the cosmic rays hit their machine. Johnny is set on fire, Sue briefly turns invisible, Ben is hit with meteorites, and Reed’s body contorts and stretches as it is hit with energy. The teleporter activates, and they reappear in the Baxter Building, as a wave of energy creates a blackout and releases an energy wave that destroys the room and shatters the building. Later, the four wake up. They are under examination in the Baxter Building. Reed can know stretch indefinitely. Sue can turn invisible and create force fields. Johnny can turn into flames. Finally, Ben is now a mutated rock creature. When Ben discovers that Reed is responsible, he tries to kill Reed, in a fight that ends with Sue separating them with a force field. Meanwhile, the damaged teleportation device is being brought to Washington, D.C. in a helicopter, under the orders of the agency that Agent Lumpkin works for. The helicopter is attacked by a Doombot, that kills the guards, and damages the helicopter, causing it to crash into the sewer system. In the sewers, a portal opens up. In the Baxter Building, Dr. Elder is experimenting on the four, to the chagrin of Franklin Storm. Agent Lumpkin and several soldiers are in the sewers, investigating the portal in the sewers, when a giant monster emerges from it. The monster kills the soldiers, and Agent Lumpkin flees from it. The Monster rampages through New York City. In the Baxter Building, Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben see the Monster, and break out of the building to fight it. Johnny discovers that he can fly, and together they fight the Monster, as it lumbers towards a nuclear power plant.
Eventually, the Monster reaches the Nuclear Power Plant, and begins to destroy it, risking a nuclear explosion. Eventually, Johnny is able to create a powerful flame explosion, killing the Monster. Spectators cheer for the four, and when asked their name, Johnny comes up with the Fantastic Four on the spot. Seeing this, Agent Lumpkin decides that the four should be trained to fight for the government, which Dr. Elder supports and Franklin Storm disagrees with, They start to be trained, and develop their powers together. They slowly become friends, and Reed and Sue start to date. In the country of Latveria, a general is brought before a hooded figure. The general was ordered to bring back the Teleportation Device, but it was destroyed instead. The hooded figure tells the general that when he was a child, his father made him memorize his ancestry, dating back to Vlad III. Doing this reinforced the fact that he was of royal blood, and he deserves to rule Latveria. The hooded figure turns to the General, revealing his metal mask, and introducing himself as Victor Von Doom. Doctor Doom then disintegrates the General. In the Baxter Building, the four are designing new suits. Sue designs them so they are attuned to the four’s powers, meaning Johnny’s suit cannot burn, Reed’s can stretch as far as he can, Ben’s can resist enormous strain and damage, and Sue’s can turn invisible with her. Johnny adds the detail of the number four to their suits and begins working on code names. Reed is working on a security system consisting of miniature flying robots that drain electricity, called Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-Type, Integrated Electronics, or HERBIE. After the defeat of the Monster, they are now loved by the public, and Thing meets Alicia Masters, a blind woman who takes an interest in him. Agent Lumpkin then tells them that the country of Latveria is led by the unstable dictator Victor Von Doom, who poses an immense threat to the rest of the world with his advanced technology. The four are sent to Latveria in a stealth mission to apprehend Dr. Doom. They get past a large wall surrounding the city, take out the guards to Dr. Doom’s castle, and try to defeat Dr. Doom. Believing that they will win easily, the Fantastic Four are surprised when they realize that Dr. Doom’s armor contains powerful technology, and it allows him to project energy beams, fly, and create forcefields, as well as augmenting his strength, speed, and durability. His suit also contains a personal forcefield that neutralizes most attacks. Dr. Doom defeats Reed and Johnny by breaking a pipe of liquid nitrogen, freezing them, and overpowers Ben and Sue. When the four wake up, they are imprisoned underneath Doom’s castle in forcefields, and Doom taunts them, while explaining his motivations. There is a flashback of Doom’s backstory: His mother, a Latverian noblewoman, was murdered by a thief. Doom’s father, Werner Von Doom, raised Doom, but was cold and relentless, and forced him to memorize his heritage. Every night, Doom had to list all of his ancestors, starting with Vlad III. When Doom grew older, he killed his father, and went to a college in America. He became a technological genius, and swore that one day he would bring peace and prosperity to the corrupt nation of Latveria. Eventually, Doom creates a device he believes can contact the afterlife, so he can communicate with his mother. When activated, he briefly sees a ball of fire through the portal, before it explodes, scarring his face. The scarred Victor goes on a journey to the mountains of Latveria, where he encounters a group of monks, who train him in the spiritual ways, and make him a metal mask to hide his scars. Doom then builds an advanced suit of armor and kills the current leader of Latveria. He takes over, and pronounces himself Doctor Doom. In the present day, Doom finishes recounting his story. He tells the Fantastic Four that their abilities come from another dimension, and they could yield useful information if they are experimented on, so he will keep them alive. Doom then leaves to go to his laboratory and leaves his guards as well as four Doombots behind to watch over the Fantastic Four. Though the Four seem defeated, Reed manage to escape by releasing several tiny HERBIE robots, that drain the power from the forcefields, freeing them. The Fantastic Four defeat Doom’s forces, then flee the country into a forest, where they are surrounded by soldiers. However, they are rescued by Agent Lumpkin and other soldiers in jets who fight off the soldiers and fly the Fantastic Four back to the U.S. Dr. Doom watches the fleeing jet from his laboratory, then turns to rows and rows of Doombots on the wall. In the Baxter Building, the Fantastic Four watch powerlessly as the world is overwhelmed with panic. Dr. Doom, angry at the United States’ intervention in Latveria, has begun spreading his reign to the bordering countries of Yugoslavia, Transylvania, and Symkaria. There are riots in Eastern Europe, and the U.N. is unsure of what to do, as they are afraid of Doom and his power. Meanwhile, Reed is trying to create a cure for Ben. Using a reverse-engineered Negative Zone teleporter, Reed tries to siphon the energy from Ben, which would hypothetically cure him. They begin the process, and soon Ben is starting to revert back to his normal form when suddenly Dr. Elder pulls the plug. Elder tells the four that the military is declaring full war against Latveria, and the Fantastic Four will lead the front lines. He wants them to be transported to a military facility immediately, where they’ll be cut off from their friends and family. Franklin Storm angrily disagrees, refusing to let his children fight in the middle of a war. The argument escalates until Elder has security takes away Franklin, as he walks away. Sue and Johnny run to him, Franklin turns to his children, and – BAM! A huge explosion tears through the building, killing Franklin, scarring Dr. Elder, and knocking out the Four, who Sue saves from the brunt of the blast with a hasty forcefield. The smoke clears, and Reed slowly gets up in the ruins of the room, along with the rest of the team. Reed sees that the power is down, so security (HERBIE Droids) won’t be able to help. He is interrupted, however, when an army of Doombots flies to the front of the of the hole. An outside shot shows that the building is entirely surrounded by the Doombots.The four go to battle with the Doombots throughout the building. They are separated and overwhelmed by the huge army. Each member of the four holds their own against the robots, but soon they start to be overcome. Doom speaks through one of the robots when it is choking Reed, taunting him for failing to kill him, and mockingly saying that Doom is smarter than Reed. Sue then rescues Reed, and Doom orders the robots to kill Sue quickly before she can defeat them, as she is the greatest threat. The robots swarm Sue, and she creates a forcefield that falters as she tries to hold them off. She flashes back to her childhood with her dead father, including them playing together when she was a child, them standing at their mother’s grave, Sue being welcomed into the Baxter Building, and finally Dr. Storm’s dead body, and with a scream of rage Sue releases a forcefield wave that kills every Doombot in the building. She stumbles back from the effort. Suddenly, a soldier shoots a tranquilizer dart at her neck, knocking her out, and they do the same to Reed and Johnny. Ben withstands the darts, and charges at the soldiers, until they fire powerful electric rifles that knock him out. In Latveria, Doombots bring Dr. Doom the teleportation device. Doom begins experimenting with it, and announces that he with it he will be able to reach the afterlife and bring back him mother, and become the master of death. When the Four wake up, they are in a secure military facility. Dr. Elder, now scarred from the explosion caused by the Doombots, announces that after the death of Dr. Storm and the failed mission to kill Doom, the military has seized control of the project from the Agent Lumpkin’s agency, who were formerly in charge. The military announces that the Four will be shipped out ot Latveria in the front lines of an invasion force in one week. During that time, the Four are held captive in confinement. Agent Lumpkin talks to Elder, and asks if the Four could be given more freedom, but Elder believes that they are now the property of the military, and they serve for the rest of their lives. Agent Lumpkin is angry at that, and calls his agency, telling them to intervene. A mysterious figure on the other end of the phone says that they’re not able to go against the military, but they are working on something. Later, Sue is trying to escape with her forcefields but is unable. Lumpkin visits her and tells her she is unable to escape. Sue asks why they would let Elder treat them like this, and Lumpkin reveals that the agency that was formerly in charge of the Baxter Foundation had their control of the four given to Dr. Elder and the military, after the failed attempt to kill Dr. Doom. Until the four can prove that they don’t need to be held captive, the military will be in charge. Sue asks how they can prove this when they aren’t given a chance, and Lumpkin replies that they’ll have to think of something. He walks out of the room, but not before secretly giving Sue a key. Dr. Elder visits Reed in his containment cell. Reed begs to be released, but Elder refuse. Dr. Elder now hates Reed, for failing to kill Dr. Doom, which led to Elder’s face being scarred by the explosion. Reed angrily lunges at Elder, who uses an electrified Escrima stick to stun him, knocking him out. However, it is revealed that an invisible Sue snuck into the room, and she knocks out Elder and awakens Reed. They bust out Johnny and Ben and try to escape. However, Dr. Elder wakes up and activates an alarm. The building goes into lockdown, and the four are trapped inside. They fight their way down to the basement, where they steal a prototype hovercar, AKA the Fantasticar. Using it, they bust out of the building and fly away. Dr. Elder watches them fly angrily. In Latveria, Doctor Doom is still experimenting with the machine. He eventually manages to activate it, by supercharging it with Latveria’s entire electrical grid which is drawn into his suit and shot out into the machine. This powers the machine and connects his suit to it, which causes the machine to blast a beam of energy into the sky. This creates earthquakes and thunderstorms as the dimensional barrier is ripped open. As the Fantastic Four fly across the ocean in the Fantasticar, they are endangered by the thunderstorms and tidal waves caused by Doom. Human Torch maneuvers the ship to escape giant waves, and Reed realizes that the activation of the Negative Zone Transporter tore a hole in reality, and could destroy the world if kept open. The Fantasticar passes over Latveria, where they see the source of the disturbance: A giant beam of light coming out of Doom’s castle, creating a swirling vortex of storm clouds. As they watch, the vortex begins to suck things in, and buildings and streets are ripped apart and absorbed into the portal. Doom sees the four approaching through the window. He is not willing to let them stop his plan to bring back his mother. He unleashes a colossal army of Doombots after them. The Doombots tear apart the Fantasticar. Sue’s forcefield gets them safely down to ground, and they fight the Doombots. Dr. Doom watches as the four valiantly fight the army of robots. The portal grows wider and wider. Dr. Doom is drawing power from the portal, and he is connected to both it and the Doombots. His suit is connected to the portal, and he powers it while it powers his suit. The Four eventually fight their way to Doom, and begin to overpower him, until the forcefield rumbles and two of the Negative Zone Monsters emerge. Torch and Sue fight the monsters, while Ben and Reed battle Doom. Torch is swallowed by a monster, but unleashes a supernova attack from the inside, killing it. Sue creates a giant forcefield blast that topples the other monster. Before they can join Reed and Ben in fighting Doom, they are swarmed by a mass of Doombots. Meanwhile, Doom has overpowered Ben due to his suit’s personal forcefields protecting him from harm. Reed tries to help Ben, but the Doombots swarm him and attack him. Doom offers to cure Ben if he works for him. He plants seeds of doubt in Ben’s mind, that Reed was a coward and a fool, who’s carelessness in building the device led to Thing being mutated. Doom tells Ben to work for him, and together they will create a utopian society, with peace, prosperity, and no death. Ben rejects this plan with one sentence: “It’s clobbering time!” Ben punches Doom back, briefly disorientating him. Ben charges at Doom, who blasts him back with a powerful energy beam. Doom is about to kill Ben, but Reed slingshots out of the mass of Doombots, and attacks Doom. Doom easily beats Reed, and throws him to the ground. Reed tries to reason with Dom, begging him to stop the portal that will destroy the world. But Doom has gone mad with power. He believes that once he reaches the afterlife, and gains power over life and death, he will be a god, and he can remake the destroyed world in his own image. Doom tells Reed that he has proven how much smarter he is, and that he has beaten them. “I was perfect. I have always been perfect. You were never perfect. Scrawny little effort of a man. I can recite my family tree through six hundred years and I can recite the correct superpositioning code. Even now. Even now. You never understood that science is an art, not a system. Modern science comes from Descartes, who said that the conquest of nature is achieved through measurement and number. Do you know how he came to that realization? He had a psychedelic experience with mushrooms in which an angel told him this was so.” Doom looks at the swirling mass of the portal, as the Doombots overwhelm and prepare to kill Johnny and Sue. Doom reaches out to the portal, as energy flickers between him and the portal. He begins to chant his bloodline, like his father taught him years ago. As he chants, Doom flies into the air, as the portal grows bigger and stronger, and white lightning traverses between Doom and the portal, connecting them. Through the portal, Doom sees a brief flicker of his mother, who is smiling sadly as they are separated by the portal. Suddenly, Reed turns to face Doom. “You know what? Maybe you are just a teeny bit smarter than me. But you didn’t account for this.” Out of his hand fly the HERBIE robots, that swarm Doom and begin draining the energy from his suit, which is connected on the portal. The portal fluctuates wildly as Doom screams in anger. Doom’s suit sparks and bursts with electricity, and the portal glows brighter as the image of Doom’s mother disappears. Reed turns to Doom, triumphant. Reed explains that the connection between the portal and Doom has been broken, and he can no longer control it. Without Doom’s control over the portal, it is slowly fading away. Doom rants at Reed. “No one rivals Doom! NO ONE! Doom is supreme! There is no power on earth, no intellect in all creation to equal Mine!” Reed interrupts. “Doom? Go to hell.” Reed then punches Doom in the face, sending him spiralling into the vortex. There is a burst of light and energy, as the portal collapses in on itself. There was a wave of energy that fills the screen with brightness. When Reed wakes up, he and the rest of the four are in hospital beds, surrounded by soldiers. They burst out, and prepare to fight their way out of the hospital. Suddenly, a man obscured by darkness walks in, escorted by Agent Lumpkin. He tells the Four not to be worried, that they are safe. Ben demands to know who he is. The man replies with “I am Nick Fury. Agent of SHIELD.” He walks out of the shadow, revealing his eyepatched face. Fury explains that SHIELD started the Baxter Foundation in the first place, but after their failure to kill Doom the government gave control of the four to the military and Dr. Elder. But now that the four has proven that they can be heroes by themselves, and the military failed to keep the Four contained, the government gave SHIELD control again, after firing Dr. Elder. SHIELD has decided that since the four have shown that they can fight crime and evil themselves, they will not be kept under as close supervision. Rather, they will be allowed to live in the Baxter Building themselves, bar a few SHIELD agents working as security, as well as Agent Lumpkin who stay there as their handler, of sorts. The Four agree, but Sue asks what SHIELD will need them for, now that Dr. Doom is dead. Fury replies that there is always some new danger, some rising threat, that must be fought. He tells the Four that even now, new dangers are stirring. There is strange activity under the sea, possibly caused by the Negative Zone Transporter’s disturbance of Earth’s oceans. The camera shows the ruins of a broken city, with a cracked temple in the building marked “Namor.” Dr. Elder is missing, and a SHIELD base in Antartica went off the grid. The camera shows a room full of dead bodies, with Elder standing in the middle with his taser staff, facing the corpse of one of the Negative Zone monsters that was being experimented on. Finally, Fury explains that they still haven’t found Doom’s corpse, and it seems that where ever he is, it’s not on Earth. Fury asks the Four if they are ready to fight these threats, and after a pause, Reed replies “We are.” In the Negative Zone, the ground is littered with rubble from Doom’s castle, as well as Doom’s broken mask lying on the ground. Suddenly, there is whispering. “Vlad Tepes Dracula married Cneajna of Transylvania, begettung Mihnea.” A figure begins to crawls towards the mask, cloaked in robes. “Mihnea married Smarana, and the then Voica.” The figure lifts the mask and slowly stands up. “Voica begat Milos, Ruxandra, and Mircea.” The figure, who’s face is obscured by shadows, slowly places the mask on his face. Dr. Doom stands alone in the Negative Zone, dark shapes flying in the sky above him. “Mircea married Maria Dispina… Richard Richards Richards. I am perfect. I am always perfect.” Doctor Doom then raises his hand, and a beam of lightning strikes down from the sky into his fist.
So, this is it. A few notes: The end set up the sequel, which would feature Namor and Mole Man. At the end, Doctor Doom did not gain traditional powers like he did in the Fox movies, he tapped into the afterlife and gained the power of magic like in the comics. I know Dr. Elder’s mental breakdown seemed to make no sense, but this would be explored in the sequel. Now that this long project’s done, I’m going to take a bit of a break from my blog to write a book: “Into The Fire.” Excelsior!
Asteroid DC 